


The Glory of My Story.

by zimnokurw



Series: hydra never felt like home to me [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: BAMF Peter Parker, Ex-Hydra, Gen, Hydra Peter Parker, Interrogation, Peter Parker Meets the Avengers, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Peter Parker-centric, a bit - Freeform, but he's scared, discussing peter's past, kind of, more like conversation, peter's keeping straight face
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-02
Updated: 2020-05-02
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:55:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23962705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zimnokurw/pseuds/zimnokurw
Summary: Peter’s struggle with opening up to the Avengers.“The golden rule carved in his mind in case he was ever captured was buying time. That means that he’s supposed to exhaust every possible way of doing so. He’s supposed to give HYDRA Agents time to get together, make a plan and come to the rescue, but there’s no HYDRA anymore, there’s no rescue. The Avengers are supposed to be his rescue.”
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Peter Parker, Peter Parker & Avengers Team, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Series: hydra never felt like home to me [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1713337
Comments: 26
Kudos: 724





	The Glory of My Story.

**Author's Note:**

> i graduated high school lately, so i didn’t have any assignments anymore and finally finished part 2 of the series. 
> 
> it ended being completely different than what i first had in mind, but i kinda like it. hope u guys r staying safe out there x

* * *

Peter wasn't sure what to expect when he agreed to get help from the Avengers. What was that even supposed to mean? “Getting help”?

He imagined that he would be interrogated, that maybe they’d want to install monitoring in his apartment so that they could spy on him. He was afraid they’d want him to quit school, because he was dangerous to innocent teenagers around him. What about his job as a photographer? He was curious if he’d have some weekly meetings with them - with the Soldier?, if they’d want him to fight with them in case of another villain showing up. He wondered if they’d want to study him, just like HYDRA’s scientists studied him after they injected him with the ‘spider bite’. He was asking himself if the Avengers would want him to move into the Tower so that he’d be closer. He was curious how the rest of the superhero band was even going to react when they heard about some evil HYDRA Teen. Should he tell them about being Spider-Man? Would they find out on their own? How would they react?

Peter thought that he played out every possible scenario of the outcome in his head and that he wouldn’t be surprised by anything that was about to come. 

All of the Avengers living in the Tower agreed that he should move in with them ✔︎. He was expecting it, alright.

His room was supposed to be in Tony Stark’s penthouse, not to overwhelm him with all the people living on the common floor ✔︎. He was actually satisfied with it. Sure, at first maybe he wanted to be closer to Bucky, but he wasn’t looking forward to having a bedroom next to Mr. Good and Righteous a.k.a. Captain America or walking into the kitchen in the morning to find there all the Avengers eating breakfast.

What Peter did not think was going to happen, was sitting down in the Conference room with all the Avengers at noon on Saturday and having  _ a Q&A with them _ ✗. He didn’t even meet all of them and now they are sitting across from him, looking at him and trying to read his entire life story  _ from his face _ . Trying to  _ understand him _ , before he even opened his mouth.

There's a big conference table and when Peter comes into the room with Bucky and Stark. He notes Sam Wilson, Steve Rogers, Vision, Wanda Maximoff, Clint Barton, Natasha Romanov, and Bruce Banner. They all lift their heads and look at him as if they spent a month just waiting to see him. Peter wants to turn around and get back to the penthouse or at least stop for a moment to deal with the weight of their gazes, but he can’t show them that he’s weak, so he straightens and sits across from them. If he felt like he was in the courthouse, facing people of the jury and waiting on his sentence, so be it. He’d suck it up. 

“I know you.” he says with a steady voice, looking straight at Wanda Maximoff. “You’re HYDRA.” he adds and the woman shakes her head quickly. 

Her face seems really sad for a moment, but then she speaks. “I was.” she answers, and Peter doesn’t understand. 

“So you still are.” he argues. “It’s not a job, you can’t just quit.” the boy frowns.

“Peter.” sounds the Soldier’s voice, so the teen turns to look at him.

“They raised me.” Peter says before the man can even start. Sure, HYDRA caused his parents’ plane crash and they took him like he was an object, but they  _ did _ take him. Ms. Zasha taught him how to read, they gave him food and clothes. They taught him how to fight, to defend himself. He owes his life to them. “I’m alive because of them. I hate them, but I’m still HYDRA.” Peter explains. His voice sounds desperate, almost begging to listen to him and to believe him. Screaming -  _ it’s important! If you want to understand me, understand this! _

“They raised you?” asks Agent Barton. Peter can almost hear pity in his voice and it makes him want to punch the stupid conference table.

“You didn’t know that?” the teen answers rhetorically, frowning. What do they know then? Why would they agree for him to move into the Tower if they don’t know a fact so simple about him? “What  _ did _ you tell them?” Peter asks, turning to Bucky and Stark.

“Just that we know each other from HYDRA.” the Soldier answers.

“It’s your story to tell.” adds Stark and that’s weird. Since when do people just do that? People talk, they gossip, they want to know all your dirty secrets and then sell it to others. Peter shakes his head to ground himself and get back to the present because now is not the time for overthinking. 

He looks at Agent Barton. “Yep.” the boy leans against the chair’s back.

“Were you born there?” asks Captain America, so Peter turns his head to him.

“I was one year old when they-” he clears his throat. “When they found me.” he doesn’t look away, because he’s not weak.

“Where did they find you?” sounds Agent Romanov and Peter sees that she narrowed her eyes at him. He looks around the room, trying to mesmerize how it looks. 

“Plane wreck.” the walls seem to be white at first, but it isn't a clear white color. Something in between white and beige.

“Who else was in the plane crash?” the conference table is made from some expensive wood and it’s so clean it shines.

“My parents.” maybe there’s some kind of glass in it too, because Peter is pretty sure you can see your reflection in this table if you put your face close enough. 

“What happened to them?” the boy hears and he lifts his palm, holding it above the table for a moment and watching the reflection of it. Theory confirmed.

“They died.” Peter shrugs. It’s not like he remembers them or anything. Sometimes he thinks that he misses them, but he’s pretty sure that he misses the idea of having parents more than Mary and Richard Parkers. And he knows he should feel terrible for not remembering or not missing them, but he doesn’t feel anything about that. He misses May and Ben more, even though he didn’t know them for long. “Hey, do you want me to quit school?”

“You are a teenager, you need education.” Tony Stark answers with a voice as if Peter personally offended him. “You are not going to be a high school drop out.” it’s apparently better to be HYDRA’s ex-Agent than a high school drop out, geez, Peter forgot.

“Why would we want you to drop from school?” Bucky frowns.

“Because I’m dangerous.” answers the teen without missing a beat. He says it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world and he doesn’t understand why he even needs to explain that.

“That doesn’t mean that you can’t be trusted.” assures him Wanda, smiling slightly. It makes Peter wonder if she’s speaking from her own experience. She’s powerful too, after all. Didn't it scare her? Wasn’t she worried about hurting someone? Someone innocent, someone not deserving it? Doing it without any intention, by a mistake?

“Do you go to school?” Peter asks, looking up at her and tilting his head. She looks young, she should be around 17, 18? Peter thinks that ZASHA didn’t tell him anything about Wanda’s age.

“I’m too old for school.” laughs the woman and Peter frowns. Maybe in Sokovia they graduate early? “I’m 20.” she explains when she sees the boy’s confusion. 

“You look younger.’

“Thank you.” Wanda answers with - what looks like - a warm smile. Do girls like when you tell them they look young? All the girls at his high school actually do makeup to look older than they really are. “How old are you?”

”14.”

”You are gifted then, aren't you?” speaks up Dr. Banner for the first time and Peter narrows his eyes on him. ”You are obviously very smart for such a young age.” the doctor explains. He was at the Interns’ presentations when Peter fucked up and spoke when he shouldn’t have.

”I just like to read.” the teen shrugs, because he's had a lot of time at HYDRA’s base for reading, before the bite. And after - he became faster, so he always managed to find some time anyway.

”I'm sorry, do you have Artificial Intelligence on you? I'm picking up on something.” cuts in Vision with his British accent. Peter was always curious about the bot, impressed even. How many days and nights Stark and Dr. Banner must’ve worked to create him? He’s almost like a real person! 

”Yep.” 

“And you said that what does ZASHA stand for?” asks Stark, narrowing his eyes at the boy in a way that clearly shows his interest in the matter, so Peter looks at him unimpressed.

“I didn’t.” he answers coldly. And he’s not going to explain it to any of the Avengers. He’s pretty sure that ~~the Soldier~~ Bucky would guess the answer, though. He’s pretty sure Bucky remembers Ms. Zasha from the base and from all those conversations when Peter mentioned her, but he’s hoping that the man will respect his privacy and won’t say anything.

“Okay then.” Stark doesn’t push the subject and Peter wonders if he should be grateful or if that was the engineer’s way to ask another question in a moment. One that would actually be a concern to the Avengers. “What about your… enhancements?” and there it is.

Peter isn’t sure if he should tell them everything. Would it be better to trust them completely or keep a few things to himself? He doesn’t trust them right now, that much he knows. He’s still holding himself on guard in case this is just their plan. In case the Q&A-interrogation thing is just a way to get as much information out of him as they can and then they plan on handing him over to SHIELD or the Government. He knows the Soldier wouldn’t want to do that to him, but maybe he was outvoted on the matter? Maybe the Avengers left him in the dark and he’s just not aware?

There were a few things that HYDRA taught Peter, a few quotes that were carved into his mind. One of them could be useful right now.

“They did it on my eleventh birthday.” the teen says. He doesn’t want to remain silent for too long, because Agents Romanoff and Barton would pick up on that and read it as being scared and uncomfortable and as him making up the answer instead of going for the truth. “It was the safest to experiment on me because I was the youngest, so there was the biggest chance that I would… uh, adapt?” Peter winces at his own answer, not being sure how to put his thoughts into words. “And if I died in the process then at least they wouldn’t lose anyone important.” 

The golden rule carved in his mind in case he was ever captured was buying time. That means that he’s supposed to exhaust every possible way of doing so. He’s supposed to give HYDRA Agents time to get together, make a plan and come to the rescue, but there’s no HYDRA anymore, there’s no rescue.  _ The Avengers are supposed to be his rescue.  _

“What are your enhancements?” asks Dr. Banner. 

Being interrogated is a skill, you see. It’s flying a kite that can crash at any time. With your right hand you release the thread of the truth, you want to show them that they broke you, that you’re honest. When the kite takes off, when they believe you’re telling the truth, when they’re certain they’ll get something out of you, you pull on the thread with your left hand, stopping the kite. You stall them.

“I’m super strong.” starts Peter. “And my senses were dialed to eleven. Like hearing, and my vision suddenly improved. Sometimes it gets twelve and that’s when things go bad.” is not telling the whole truth considered lying? What if he kept just a bit to himself? 

“Over-stimulation from the environment?” sounds Dr. Banner again. It kinda makes sense. After all, even with Stark in the room - Banner is  _ the _ scientist here. What with all those PhDs, the gamma radiation, and the Hulk…

“Yeah.” Peter answers and he looks up at the ceiling. “Agent Rumlow would always make me train harder on the bad days, to see just how far can they push.” there’s a projector hanging from the ceiling. Just your usual conference room, obviously, but there isn’t any screen to display whatever files would be looked through at the moment. “I’d bleed from my nose and ears sometimes. We usually fought until I passed out.” Peter looks over to where the projector screen technically should be and he figures that it probably works with holograms which is way cooler and more convenient than the traditional version. He notices the looks on the Avengers’ faces. Something like hate and pity but he’s pretty sure that the former isn’t aimed at him so he feels the need to justify HYDRA’s methods. “It’s good though, that they did it.” he hurries, before someone can speak up. “Because now when I’m in school there’s obviously a lot of noise and smells and people pushing you and crowding, but even when I feel like I’m overwhelmed by that, I get like- headaches but it usually doesn’t get too bad.”

“Do you get panic attacks caused by sensory overload sometimes?” asks Stark and Peter already knows that the man gets panic attacks himself. It’s  _ so _ clear on his face when he asks the question with a concern pouring out of his voice in a really  **not** -Tony-Stark style. And it was just as clear when he was calming Peter down from his panic attack in the penthouse that he knew what was going on, what to do and what to say and  _ when _ to say it. Obviously Peter didn’t catch that in the middle of his attack, but now - looking back - it’s clear that the engineer had the experience, not just knowledge from some online article. “Or maybe you get sensory overload during panic attacks?” he adds.

“I’m used to feeling overwhelmed by the whole environment so it doesn’t freak me out anymore.” the teen answers to the first question. “The latter though, sometimes. It’s just- most people need to control their breathing to survive a panic attack, right? Not to hyperventilate and all that, but for me it’s a heartbeat. So like, when I start freaking out I try to find someone calm with a steady heartbeat to listen to, but I’m freaking out too much and I can’t focus just on one person and suddenly I hear also my own heart beating way too fast, and it freaks me out even more. And then there are five more people, and another five and entire hall and school. And they all have loud heartbeats, and they all talk too fast, and they breathe totally not in sync and they start to smell and the floor doesn’t feel steady and the walls get too heavy even though I can’t feel that but my brain tries to tell me that I do-“ Peter stops when he catches how he went off and when he feels his heart starting to speed up and when he thinks that talking about it and remembering it is about to send him into a new panic attack in a second. “The latter, sometimes.” he answers, stretching his back.

“You mentioned only the enhancements that we already figured seeing you in Stark’s penthouse.” Black Widow says, seeming unbothered by his mental health issues and thank fuck for that, because Peter is about to punch Captain America if he’s going to look at him the entire meeting like at some hurt puppy that was abandoned because he wasn’t cute enough.

“I’m flexible also, and fast.” adds the teen and he tilts his head to the right, thinking what else to say and what to keep a secret. “And have like- superhuman stamina? of sorts? Just that I don’t get tired quickly, but I feel like that’s kinda obvious.” Peter breaths out, because he’s been living with those enhancements for a few years now so he doesn’t exactly notice them anymore. It’s just there, it’s just a part of who he is. “Oh! Superhuman equilibrium, that’s cool. So, like- I’m able to adjust my position by instinct, without being cautious.” the boy shifts in his chair. “And toughened flesh? That allows me to survive great impacts?” he actually said a lot already. The Avengers probably wouldn’t be offended if he kept a few things to himself. “I also have increased metabolism, so I heal faster than normal people.” he ends.

“Who did that to you?” asks Bucky and he sounds pissed. Looking at his face, he doesn’t look too happy either.

“Dr. Moth.” Peter shrugs and he sees the man tense when he hears the name. “It’s fine though, I like it.” he adds, because that’s the truth. He’s probably alive right now thanks to those powers he has, and he’s Spider-Man thanks to them too. 

“Was it another of their versions of super soldier serum?” asks Sam Wilson, speaking up for the first time and surprising Peter a bit, because he was expecting it coming from Dr. Banner.

“Some kind of complex mutagenic enzymes in spider's blood.” he answers. “Are you going to study me, like HYDRA?” he adds, sounding bored, but in reality he’s scared. His “exam days” at the base were the worst and he has absolutely no desire to ever go through any of that again. He never even thinks about stuff they did to him, unless he suddenly remembers it in the form of a nightmare.

“If you want to know more about your abilities, I’m sure Bruce can figure something out, but if you’re not comfortable with the idea of being studied then we don’t even need to touch your blood.” informs Stark. The man’s voice is firm, but reassuring. His face looks serious and he seems to genuinely mean his words.

“I’m Spider-Man.” blurts out the boy, looking at the engineer and feeling amazed at his kind answer. But as soon as he registers what he just said - he claps a hand over his own mouth. Too late, though.

**Author's Note:**

> i’m not sure why i ended it so dramatically, really. at first i thought that this fic would be around 5/6 thousands words, but then i just felt it this way so i decided to go with it
> 
> i really took a liking to this series; i already plan on peter meeting loki and thor when they come to visit!! (i’d like him to also meet rhodey, shuri, t’challa and scott at some point)
> 
> should rhodey be in one fic with loki and thor or in something where i’ll be more focusing on peter&tony ??


End file.
